


Ceasefire

by fengirl88



Series: Invasion [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Warning: Implied Incest, Warning: Implied Past Sexual Abuse, Warning: Traumatic Memory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-12
Updated: 2011-05-12
Packaged: 2017-10-19 08:02:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/198675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/pseuds/fengirl88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing he can do about the past.  That much was clear after he'd seen Mycroft...</p><p>final part of the Invasion series (Invasion; Reconnaissance; Reveille; Ambush; Intelligence; Mosaic; Minefield; Incendiary)</p><p><strong>please note the warnings for the series as a whole: implied incest, implied past sexual abuse, traumatic memory</strong></p>
            </blockquote>





	Ceasefire

**Author's Note:**

> Heartfelt thanks to blooms84, ginbitch and kalypso_v for betaing this part and the series as a whole.

They're at the zoo, watching the leafcutter ants at work, and they've been standing in the same position for the past twenty minutes. John's leg is starting to ache, but he doesn't want to break Sherlock's concentration by moving away. He shifts his weight to the other leg as unobtrusively as he can.

The ants march to and fro, carrying their huge burdens along the lines of rope that serve in place of South American rainforest. It reminds him of an assault course, but without a sergeant-major shouting orders and threats (“Move your fucking arse, Watson, or I'll move it for you!”). According to that article Sherlock made him read, though, the ant world is less like an army, more like an office that communicates by meaningless text messaging.

Next to humans, the notice tells him, leafcutter ants form the largest and most complex animal societies on earth. Up to eight million of them in a colony, apparently, which must be about as far from the nuclear family as you can get. He doesn't know if that's why Sherlock's so fascinated by them.

Sherlock is completely absorbed, oblivious to the milling schoolchildren who come and go, the parties of tourists, even a pair of squabbling entomologists. You'd never know, to look at him, that there was anything different about him. Certainly couldn't deduce the turbulence of the past few months.

 

Fourteen weeks into the therapy now, and it's just as well Ella had warned John it gets worse before it gets better. Some days, it's all he can do to hang on in there.

He has no idea what goes on between Sherlock and the therapist – can't imagine it, and Sherlock won't talk about it. He doubts it's anything like his own experience with Ella. All he knows is that Sherlock _is_ still going. That, and the pattern of the week: the way Sherlock withdraws into himself after each session, becomes tense as the next one approaches.

Right now, they're mid-way between sessions, in that period of calm that John longs for more each time: a chance to catch their breath before the next big push. He's learning to make the most of these quiet intervals, to think of new things to do that Sherlock might like. Spending hours looking at Chinese pottery in the British Museum, or going to a Bach concert in one of the City churches. Or watching an ants' nest.

Finding ways to connect with Sherlock.

It's all he _can_ do.

 

Nothing he can do about the past. That much was clear after he'd seen Mycroft: no justice or retribution to be had when you're dealing with a dead man. Which let John off the hook, but also left him full of violent emotions with nowhere to go.

Realizing it wasn't Mycroft after all had been like running into a brick wall. Looking at that photograph through Mycroft's eyes. What Mycroft had told him, in between choking and retching.

“They were always so close. Always having little jokes and secrets. I never dreamed –”

Mycroft couldn't see that relationship for what it was. Maybe nobody could have. But it was obvious how much he'd longed for their father's love. He must have envied Sherlock, thought he was the lucky one. _Christ._

John can't imagine what that's like. How do you cope when everything you thought you knew about someone you loved turns out to be a lie?

Never thought he'd feel _sorry_ for Mycroft Holmes.

Sherlock still refuses to speak to Mycroft. About this, or anything else. John thinks he blames Mycroft at some level for not being around, for leaving him unprotected when the abuse started. It's not as if being sent away to school was Mycroft's choice, any more than being hospitalized was Mummy's. But that doesn't stop Sherlock blaming him. Blaming them both.

He can't see any hope of a reconciliation between Sherlock and Mycroft at this point. But at least Mycroft's still alive, so it's not closed off completely, the way it is with Mummy.

People always say “Oh, the wife must have known.” Which is rubbish, obviously. But she must have found out at some point, and John's pretty sure he knows what she did about it. The Holmes brothers aren't the only ones who can read between the lines of that coroner's report. It's not that difficult if you know what you're looking for, if you know about the abuse. But it seems as if nobody else knew, back then.

He wonders how she found out. Sherlock might know, but what Sherlock knows is blocked off, inaccessible. Only time will tell whether the therapy's working, or how much of the past it will reveal.

 

“You blame her, don't you?” Clara had said.

They were sitting in one of the cafés at St Pancras, on the grounds that it was the least likely place for Sherlock to turn up. He still felt guilty about talking to her, but he had to talk to someone and it couldn't be Lestrade, for obvious reasons. Or Sarah, or Harry.

“For the abuse? God, no.”

He knows some people say it's all about family dynamics. But whatever their marriage was like, Mrs Holmes wasn't responsible for her husband's actions.

“For what then?” Clara asked.

He remembered the look on Mycroft's face when he talked about the promises he'd made.

“Secrets,” he said. “Secrets and silence.”

Clara pulled a face. “What was she supposed to do?”

“I don't know.”

Mycroft's role as secret-keeper had begun early, hadn't it? With a secret he didn't even know he was keeping. He had that in common with Sherlock, at least.

John knows more than he used to about incest survivors and memory. Been reading up on it, though doing that makes him feel uncomfortable, almost as if he's spying on Sherlock. How people can end up with two sets of memories: the conscious ones that match the public record, and the buried ones where the abuse and secrets are kept hidden away. Until something cracks open the vault. The way _he'd_ done with Sherlock, not meaning to, not even knowing there was anything to crack.

“I wish –” He couldn't finish the sentence, but he didn't need to.

“Maybe the memory could surface because Sherlock's _safe_ with you, have you thought of that?” Clara said.

He knew what she meant, but it didn't make him feel any better.

“At least now he has a chance to recover,” she insisted.

“Yeah, you're right, I know, I know.”

Clara glanced at her watch and signalled to the waiter for the bill.

“You're still thinking about it, aren't you?” she said. “Wishing she hadn't killed him so you could do it yourself.”

“Probably just as well I can't,” he said. Didn't stop him wanting to, though.

“Wouldn't help Sherlock if you went to prison,” Clara said.

“Nothing I do helps him anyway,” he said.

“Come on, John, you know that's not true. He knows you're there, and that's the most important thing right now apart from the therapy.”

They sat there a little longer in silence, John trying to brace himself to go back to 221b. Therapy day again.

 

John stares at the placard explaining that ants can excavate up to forty-four tons of earth to build a nest for their colony. The notice says the equivalent in human terms would be building the Great Wall of China, but what it actually makes him think of is all that buried memory, with no sign on the surface of what lies beneath. Subterranean and labyrinthine.

Every time they get a call from Lestrade, there's the fear that something else at the crime scene will trigger Sherlock's memory. It hasn't happened again, not since that one time with the Airfix models. He hopes that eventually they'll get used to making it through a case without that kind of trauma, be able to take it for granted rather than having it feel like a reprieve.

It's a slow process. Just have to keep going, do the best you can.

 

Sherlock draws a long deep breath, his shoulders tensing and then relaxing as he exhales. It's a sequence John's coming to recognize as meaning he's almost ready to move on.

He puts his arms gently around Sherlock's waist, holding him carefully, lightly, so that he doesn't startle or pull away. Sherlock's hands come down to grip him, wrapping John's arms around him in a tighter embrace. John tries not to hope for too much, read too much into it, but he can't suppress a shudder of relief. His longing for physical affection is so intense that every touch risks becoming overcharged.

Sherlock turns around in John's embrace and leans down to kiss him. It's not that desperate clinging kiss, craving for reassurance, or that angry impersonal push for oblivion. This one's different and it feels like a blessing, a gentle pressure of something understood without words: _You love me and you're still here_. And his own wordless response: _Yes I do. Yes I am. Yes._

He's not sure if Sherlock's had enough for the afternoon, so he asks “Anything else you want to see?”

Sherlock shakes his head. “Maybe next time,” he says. “But that was – good. Thank you.”

He looks dead tired, but more peaceful than John's seen him for months, and there's something there that's almost a smile. John wants to cry and shout and squeeze the breath out of Sherlock, but he doesn't do any of those things. Not today. Not yet.

“Come on then,” he says. “Let's go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> This series has taken a long time to write, and it could not have been completed without the beta wisdom and support of blooms84, ginbitch and kalypso_v. I'm enormously grateful to them, to marysutherland for helpful discussions about the narrative as a whole, and to machshefa for her encouragement.
> 
> I'm also very grateful to marysutherland for her suggestions about outings (in general and in particular).


End file.
